Urban gym

A new project at D&A College should help students and staff fight the flab this winter, with the Arbroath Campus becoming home to the first of three planned urban gyms.

Making use of the urban gym

Working in collaboration, the college Learner Engagement, sports and engineering teams have been involved in creating the facility.

D&A College’s Dundee campuses at Kingsway and Gardyne are also to be fitted out with outdoor gym equipment such as push-up bars, a balance beam and step-up structures.

Designed by sports students all of the equipment is being manufactured at the college’s Arbroath Campus and will be transported and moved to the various sites – appropriately paved with impact-absorbing, safety surfacing.

The Arbroath Campus gym is situated on the south side of Keptie Road.

“The creation of these structures posed a number of challenges to our students,” commented Jim Stewart, head of engineering at the college.

“Not least transporting the equipment from our workshop to the actual sites.

“Meeting these challenges however has proved rewarding and given some of our HNC/D engineering students the chance to gain much-needed project management experience.”

The urban gym, one of the first of its kind in any college in Scotland, was funded partly through Angus Council Stalled Spaces, a Legacy 2014 programme supported by Architecture and Design Scotland and the Scottish Government, and partly through the D&A Innovation Fund.

“Many of our students live on a very low budget so access to gym memberships or sports clubs is not an option,” commented Katie Baxter, learner engagement manager.

“Research shows that cost and accessibility are the two main barriers for people wanting to participate in exercise – we hope that our urban gym will remove these barriers and encourage students and staff to lead healthier lives.”

The project received £9000 in funding and took nearly a year to complete.